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History As It Happens
Back in the USSR
00:53:46
The West celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union. "This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It's a victory for the moral force of our value," said President George Bush from the Oval Office on Dec. 25, 1991, as the final curtain came down on...
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- [00:00]
Martin DeCaro
History as it happens. December 27, 2024. Back in the USSR the communist revolution.
- [00:08]
Historian/Expert
In Russia is 35 years old. Its living God is Joseph Stalin. Once again, the Soviet Union, demonstrating a colossal contempt for the opinion of mankind, has resorted to brute force to keep a satellite nation under control. Massive Soviet military forces have invaded the.
- [00:25]
Maria Lipman
Small, non aligned sovereign nation of Afghanistan.
- [00:28]
Historian/Expert
The man who took charge within hours of Konstantin Chernenko' represents a new generation. Get used to the name Mikhail Gorbachev. And by this evening, he had charmed politicians and the people of the capital alike.
- [00:44]
Political Analyst
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has been removed from power. And there are tanks now in the streets of Moscow. After six and a half years in power, Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed his resignation on television.
- [00:56]
Boris Yeltsin
Tonight, I'd like to express on behalf of the American people my gratitude to Mikhail Gorbachev, the new power broker, Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
- [01:05]
Martin DeCaro
One Expert today predicted 140 million Russians will soon be living below the poverty line.
- [01:11]
Maria Lipman
But I don't believe anyone could ever have doubted that there would be obstacles on Russia's road to a vibrant economy and a strong democracy.
- [01:19]
Martin DeCaro
On a Christmas day more than 30 years ago, the final curtain came down on the USSR. The west welcomed the collapse of Soviet Communism, prescribed shock therapy and dreamt that capitalism and democracy might flourish in the new Russian federation. Instead, the 1990s were a disaster, leaving some wishing they were back in the ussr. If there is still Cold War triumphalism, what does the west get wrong about its victory? That's next, as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:50]
Political Analyst
Well, actually, the very reason that made the west celebrate was arguably a reason for Russia to despair over the Cold War. Enemy was dramatically weakened. Its military might was diminished quite substantially. Its economic, economic might as well. This gave a reason for those in the Western world and first and foremost in the United States, to rejoice.
- [02:22]
Historian/Expert
Moscow heads the Communist world in mourning the passing of Joseph Stalin. From a saluting base on Lenin's tomb, he reviewed each year on Red Arm.
- [02:31]
Martin DeCaro
In grainy black and white, this British Pathe newsreel marked the death of a Soviet tyrant after nearly 30 years in power.
- [02:39]
Historian/Expert
One of the greatest military powers in the world, his people regarded as a God.
- [02:44]
Martin DeCaro
You know, just watching this footage, it seems so long ago. Another era when the Cold War froze solid and Communism blanketed much of the earth. Yet 1953 is only one long lifetime ago. Our guest in this episode was born just months before Joseph Stalin's death, and she lived in Moscow until 2022. Maria Lipman she witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the collapse of the economy and her country's global military might and in the ensuing decade, the shredding of Russia's aspirations to join the west and become a prosperous democracy. By 1998, 80% of Russian farms were bankrupt and 70,000 state factories were closed.
- [03:31]
Maria Lipman
I don't believe anyone could ever have doubted that there would be obstacles on Russ cautious road to a vibrant economy and a strong democracy.
- [03:39]
Martin DeCaro
The disappearance of the USSR was celebrated in the west as a victory by the West. Here's President George H.W. bush from the Oval Office Christmas Day 1991. And if you've been listening to my podcast over the past couple of years, you've heard this clip.
- [03:55]
Boris Yeltsin
The nuclear threat, while far from gone, is receding. Eastern Europe is free. The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It's a victory for the moral force of our values. Every American can take pride in this victory. From the millions of men and women who've served our country in uniform to millions of Americans who supported their country and a strong defense. Under nine presidents, new independent nations have emerged out of the wreckage of the Soviet empire. Last weekend, these former republics formed a Commonwealth of Independent States. This act marks the end of the old Soviet Union, signified today by Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to resign as president. I'd like to express on behalf of the American people my gratitude to Mikhail Gorbachev for years of sustained commitment to world peace and for his intellect, vision and courage.
- [05:03]
Martin DeCaro
The heady days of the early 1990s. One of my favorite topics to pick apart so much optimism and triumphalism. But the United States did not defeat the Soviet Union. It imploded. And democracy, rule of law and free markets did not naturally take root in the Russian Federation, dispelling notions of an end of history. In fact, things took such a dark turn that some Russians were soon looking back fondly on the ussr for all its faults, life seemed stable then compared to the chaos of the Yeltsin years. The fact that anyone could miss the USSR might seem bizarre to Americans, but we misjudged that moment, which is not the same as wishing for a return to Communism, of course. Maria Lipman is an emigre. She and her husband left their home and homeland after Putin invaded Ukraine. She is a longtime journalist and political scientist, now working at the Institute of European Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, where she is the editor of Russia Post. Today, she joins us from Berlin welcome back to the show. Maria Lipman.
- [06:09]
Political Analyst
Thank you for having me.
- [06:10]
Martin DeCaro
And season's greetings. Merry Christmas. And joining us from Berlin. And I've been looking forward to talking to you because every December I produce a show about the end of the USSR. The final curtain came down Christmas Day, December 25, 1991. And because I've been spending a lot of time lately talking about and thinking about all that optimism that greeted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of history, the triumph of democracy and free markets versus the state of the world now. And we will get to that. The promise versus the reality. But I'd like to start in the early 1950s. When you were born in Moscow shortly before Stalin's death. He died in 1953. How did Stalin's legacy shape your childhood and early adulthood?
- [07:01]
Political Analyst
I was born indeed in 1952, and Stalin died the next year. And my family actually was very heavily affected by Stalin's terror. My paternal grandfather was executed during Great Terror of 1937. His wife, my paternal grandmother, was sentenced to 10 years of labor camps as the wife of the enemy of the people. My maternal grandfather was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in 1948 and was released following Stalin's death. So by the time he returned from his labor camp, I was about three years old. And that history was never concealed from me by my parents. Soviet families have different ways of dealing with the past. However, that past was for them. But it was not uncommon for Soviet families to hide the tragic past if it was tragic from their children. This was not the case of my family. As long as I remember myself, maybe not in age 3, but when I was old enough to understand these things, I knew what happened to my grandfather, to my grandmother, and to my other grandfather. That, of course, left a very heavy impression on my family and myself. My parents were, I think, a typical family of Moscow liberal intellectuals. They did not conceal their anti Soviet attitudes from me. I mean, I always knew that what they thought about the Soviet Union and the power of the Communist Party and of course, the past. They were avid listeners of foreign radio such as the Voice of America, and avid readers of what was called samizdat, that is, underground literature that was surreptitiously distributed in close circles of friends and of course also what was referred to as tamiz dat in those days published elsewhere, literature smuggled from the West. So all of that was my background as I was growing up. And I was listening to those radios with them, of course, not every day, but sometimes, and reading with them. They shared with me, illegal reading this illegal literature, that there was always something at home that. That we were reading. This, of course, to me, I think, predetermined the interest in politics and interest in international developments. Probably one of the most striking recollections of my young years was the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
- [09:53]
Historian/Expert
These films show various scenes in Prague today. Czechoslovak television was still in operation, and the films are relayed to the United States via satellite. The young people of Prague sitting down.
- [10:04]
Political Analyst
In the path of Soviet tanks on 1968. I remember the shock. I was 16. I was with my parents on vacation. This was August of 1968. And I remember listening to the radio. I remember the grim mood. I remember the sense of distress, of deep distress over what happened.
- [10:24]
Martin DeCaro
And that was under Brezhnev. Khrushchev was already out by then. And that was the.
- [10:29]
Political Analyst
Yes, indeed, that was the Brezhnev doctrine.
- [10:32]
Martin DeCaro
That was the Brezhnev doctrine. To use force to put down an uprising like what was happening in Czechoslovakia. They wanted a better form of socialism. Right, the protesters.
- [10:42]
Political Analyst
Yes, indeed, that was what was referred to as Prague Spring. Reformists, still within the communist system, still within the. What was referred to as the socialist or Soviet camp. But the leadership of Czechoslovakia and lots and lots of people, activists and their supporters in Czechoslovakia were moving toward something that was a softer regime. And of course, this was not something the Soviet Union, Brezhnev's government, would put up with.
- [11:11]
Martin DeCaro
I have Sheila Fitzpatrick's book here, Everyday Stalinism, which is more about the 1930s than the late Stalin period. But she says popular attitudes toward the regime during Stalin's time ranged from passive acceptance to cautious hostility. So people were not entirely subservient. But they had to be very careful when taking risks, not even talking about dissent, taking risks just to try to make a better life for yourself on a day to day basis. Because regime terror had been so arbitrary and brutal when you were a child and after Stalin exited the stage, mercifully, did you still live in fear? Did your family still live in fear? You said your parents were intellectuals. Did they feel like they could express themselves a little bit more publicly about the state of things under Khrushchev, who had denounced Stalin in 1956?
- [12:04]
Political Analyst
Of course, fear was always present because we as a family kept close track of the developments of arrests and trials of dissidents. My parents were never dissidents. They were really keen on knowing what was going on and of course, deeply, deeply sympathetic to the cause of the dissidents. But fear was present and fear was. I'm sure what prevented my parents from being more active, and I would say the same was with me. I never ventured to become a dissident or even come closer to those circles. We belonged, my parents and myself belonged to this rather broad, well, relatively broad circle of people who sympathized, who thought it was their duty to at least be aware of what was going on, what was happening to every particular dissident, every next arrest and trial and interrogation and dissidents being confined to psychiatric asylums. But to join, to get more active was too dangerous. You know, unless one wanted to risk their freedom, people refrain from being actively engaged. So fear was definitely, definitely present. And when I was enough of an adult to have my own friends who shared with me now, not my parents, but my friends also sharing some that literature with me, I tried to make sure my parents wouldn't know because I thought this would put them to unnecessary risk. It was one thing what they chose to do themselves. It was quite another matter for me to expose them to the risks associated with my relations with my friends and my circle of people who probably sometimes were less cautious than I was myself.
- [13:56]
Martin DeCaro
Just by having the wrong book in your possession, is that what you mean?
- [13:59]
Political Analyst
Well, there were wrong books and wrong books. Some wrong books would probably be okay and would only result in, if discovered, would result in a summons to the KGB and what they called actually prophylactic discussions or prophylactic meetings in which they would persuade people not to do this again, basically warning them that next time it will not be about a discussion or a conversation, but about something more serious. But they were also books such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Volok Archipelago. If discovered, it could end up in an arrest. And especially if one was exposed of disseminating these literature or copying those literature. Because of course, this was way before all the modern equipment. And the way Samos dad was distributed was by making typewritten copies. So whoever was involved in actually producing and distributing could get in very serious trouble. And many people did so by the.
- [15:06]
Martin DeCaro
Time the mid-80s roll around and Gorbachev becomes general secretary, that's 1985 before he begins implementing his reforms. What was day to day life like for you in Moscow, in the Soviet Union, in terms of economics, making a living? Because during the Brezhnev period, I don't want to call it the golden age of Soviet prosperity, but there was at least some stability, right? And living conditions improved to a degree.
- [15:38]
Political Analyst
It was about stability, capital S. And actually the capital S can stand for stagnation, which is a common term used to describe that period. So stability to some, stagnation to others, mostly to outside observers, but stability was there. And, and the 70s were a time of relative prosperity for the Soviet Union. And actually, of course, stability was appreciated even by those people who actually realized the nature of the autocratic regime that the Soviet Union was, were very well aware of the events such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the arrest of dissidents. Still, everyday life is everyday life. Unless you are a dissident yourself, there are other things to distract you or to keep you busy with, and especially when you're a young person. You know, I even, you know, my parents met in 1940s and I remember asking them what was it having between the two of them, three parents who were repressed and one even executed. But at a young age, of course, you know, they met, they fell in love, they got married, they had friends, they got together, they sang songs. Normal life goes on. Anyway, in my time, of course, was by far, by far not as scary as their lives were. And as a young person, of course I had fun. I was a student at the Moscow State University, easily the best educational institution in the Soviet Union.
- [17:16]
Martin DeCaro
Gorbachev and his wife both went there.
- [17:19]
Political Analyst
Yes, indeed, indeed. So while being constantly aware of what the Soviet Union was politically, I wouldn't say that my life was a nightmare. It was certainly not. And it was in many ways normal. And also because I didn't know anything else, I didn't know what to compare it to. It was an okay life for a person, for a young person in a Moscow intellectual family, not especially well to do. But you know, my parents were not struggling like on a day to day basis.
- [17:51]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah. The reason I'm asking is twofold because, you know, from the vantage of say, an American like myself, and during the 1980s, I was born in 75, so I was a teenager here. And I was looking at the Soviet Union probably like, well, what a horrible place to live. It's a prison and everybody is poor. And also the other reason I'm asking is because, you know, I'm trying to lead into the fall of the Soviet Union and then how you felt in the 1990s looking back at it. People in the 90s would look back on those mid 80 years before the slow collapse begins to say, you know, at least we had something then, it wasn't all so bad. It's not as bad as it was in the, say, late 1990s when the economy collapsed. So I guess that's what I'm getting at.
- [18:36]
Political Analyst
I think you're asking a very important question. Because what life feels for you when it is unfolding around you and what it looks in retrospect are two very different things. It was common for people in the Soviet Union to grumble. And I would say first and foremost, what was probably shared by vast majority of Soviet people was shortages. It was an economy of shortages. And it was all kinds of constraints, civil liberties constraints for I would say a minority who cared about that and who knew enough to know that in the west they have freedoms and we don't. In the west they have open borders and we don't. But I would not say that this was of major concern to a majority in the Soviet Union. Certainly economic issues were. And first and foremost it was shortages. And it was shortages of like anything. You never knew what would be a shortage tomorrow. There were better times and worse times. But by the time Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union, shortages were worsening. People complained, people complained about corruption, about the bosses having all of it while we are having nothing. They were grumbling about the hypocrisy. Of course, in an economy of shortages, there was this whole institution of the so called blood, the connections that you needed to get hold of something that was of shortage. So grumbling, grumbling was common. And also by the time, just before Gorbachev became the leader, the Soviet Union had a succession of aging and dying leaders. And that was a sort of political jokes. Of course, you know, the regime was clearly aging, even though of course the general sense was that the regime was forever. Still, it was certainly a matter that people made fun of. Yet another one died.
- [20:32]
Martin DeCaro
Reagan made a joke about that as well. Yeah, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. So contingency in history, had Chernenko been a healthier, younger person. Right. Who knows if Gorbachev would ever have become the General Secretary. You were referring to the stagnation there. And that was a Gorbachev priority. He understood he had to do something to improve the everyday lives of his people. I want to ask you because there's been a lot of jokes made about this, why consumer products were so bad in the Soviet Union. Somebody once said to me, they couldn't even make an electric toaster that worked. And I don't know if that's true, but it's just a joke, right?
- [21:07]
Comedian/Commentator
You know, there's a 10 year delay, delay in the Soviet Union of delivery of an automobile and only every one out of seven families in the Soviet Union own automobiles. It's a ten year wait. And you go through quite a process when you're ready to buy and then you put up the money in advance. And this happened to a fella and this is their story that they tell this joke that this man, he laid down his money and then the fellow that was in charge said to him, okay, come back in 10 years and get your car. And he said, morning or afternoon? And the fellow behind the counter said, well, 10 years from now, what difference does it make? And he said, well, the plumber's coming in the morning.
- [21:59]
Political Analyst
Well, I would not go too deep into it, but that was actually the product, the result of the command and planned economy. Actually, the Soviet Union ruled out private property and private initiative. This was one of the constraints. It was not all about civil liberties, but drawing profit was a crime. Engaging in anything that can be referred to as business was a crime. You could go to jail for that, and many people did. And when you actually deprive people of a private initiative and you centralize the economy to an extent that the state assumes the responsibility upon itself to plan the production of everything from missiles to indeed, electric toasters and food, it ends in constant shortages. You cannot plan it all.
- [22:54]
Martin DeCaro
What did you think when Reagan called your country the evil empire in 1983?
- [22:59]
Comedian/Commentator
To ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding?
- [23:06]
Political Analyst
Well, you know, I'm not sure I was thinking about it in these terms. What President Reagan was talking about was the Soviet Union's foreign policy.
- [23:17]
Martin DeCaro
Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979.
- [23:20]
Political Analyst
Yeah, that was about the setting of the Cold War. They were engaged in this existential struggle. And of course, the enemy was evil. And by the same token, the United States was seen as evil. And that was the way the Soviet propaganda was talking about it. So I wouldn't say I was thinking about my country in President Reagan's terms. Of course, I knew the term he used, evil empire. And, well, I can't remember the way I interpreted it back then, but it was obviously about foreign policy.
- [23:54]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, he wasn't referring to the Soviet people or Russian citizens themselves, obviously. So perestroika and glasnost. I remember learning about those words as a kid. Did these ideas inspire you? Did you share Gorbachev's initial goal, at least to reform communism and make it better?
- [24:15]
Political Analyst
Well, when Gorbachev first appeared and indeed started using rhetoric that was not used before him, it was seen by, I would say, broad circles of Soviet people as just that, as rhetoric, as Propaganda. That was what during the period of stagnation, that was what it was all about. Life barely changed. Rhetoric did sometimes, but who cared about rhetoric? Well, of course it will remain the same. Of course there will be no reforms. I think that was the perception and certainly in my circle, but I think many people thought about it in the same fashion for, well, at least a couple of years, maybe even three years of Gorbachev's rule until things really began to change. And one of the major, major developments was the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Another was the Gorbachev memorable call to academician Andrei Sakharov, who was in internal exile in the Soviet Union. And that was Gorbachev's intention, his decision to bring him back, to bring Zakharov back from his exile. Andriy Sakharov memorably said that he was asking Gorbachev to release other political prisoners. And indeed they began coming back. So at least these two things were truly not rhetoric anymore. And that was when actually my circle of friends, and I'm sure many circles like Hours were talking about it. And suddenly we realized that he means something. Another very major change that also took place in late 80s was softening and then virtual lifting of censorship and things that used to be fully inconceivable began to appear to be published in the Soviet newspapers. And before too long it came as an avalanche. And typical scene from was a crowd of people reading a newspaper pinned up to a stand outdoors. So people, there were not enough papers for everyone. And people would be reading those papers, crowding around those stands, half believing what they were actually reading.
- [26:43]
Martin DeCaro
That's right. It's not Pravda anymore, I guess, right with the party line. So did you interpret these political reforms because. Well, the economic reforms didn't really work very well at all, actually made the situation worse. But did you interpret these political reforms as something positive that might reform communism for the better? Or did you think that communism, if not the Soviet Union itself, that communism actually might go away and you might have something different?
- [27:13]
Political Analyst
Well, actually, Gorbachev was talking about economic reforms as well. And to some people, just as for me, signs of incoming freedom were the most important thing. For some people it was the science of economic freedoms. And there were tentative laws that Gorbachev passed that actually somehow interfered with the planned economy. Cooperatives were economic cooperatives. People could come together and form something that was not yet called business, but were actually incipient businesses. To some people, that was what mattered. No, I do not think that I believed that communism can be reformed. But what was most important politically to, I think, well, I would stop short of saying a majority, but many, many people in the Soviet Union, was the dictatorship of the Communist Party, which was actually an article in the Soviet constitution that placed power with the Communist Party above all other institutions. So in theory, of course, we had a government and cabinet ministers and we had a parliament in the Soviet Union. It was not called a parliament, but technically speaking it was. But the power of the Communist Party was above all of those institutions which actually did not function as institutions. So the dictatorship of the Communist Party was what people demanded an elimination of. Remove this article from the constitution. That was, I think, what brought lots and lots of Soviet people together. We no longer want the Communist Party to be the ultimate boss of every issue issue, from ideology to economics.
- [29:01]
Martin DeCaro
The most important title for Gorbachev, for any Soviet leader, wasn't president or prime minister, he was the general secretary of the party. So did you want to live in a democracy during those late 1980s, early 90s, before the final collapse? Was democracy on your mind here?
- [29:18]
Political Analyst
I would not even talk about myself. That was on everybody's mind. Democracy instead of a one one party rule. Well, dictatorship is probably too grand a word. And the Soviet Union was not a dictatorship at that time, but it was certainly an autocracy. And the Communist Party held sway over every aspect of life. And people wanted an end to that and people wanted elections. Actually, elections began even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of course the situation was chaotic, but there was clearly an interest to a multi party system, popular elections, so that it would not be just the Communist Party as the ultimate boss, but would be people's power. There emerged something that was maybe a forerunner to a new parliament, Congresses of people's deputies which brought together people from all over the Soviet Union in a very disorganized, gigantic discussion clubs, I would say I would call them, where people were talking about all kinds of things in a fairly disorderly manner.
- [30:29]
Martin DeCaro
And there was an election during Gorbachev's time, the first free election in Russia since before the Bolshevik revolution.
- [30:37]
Political Analyst
Yes, indeed. Yes indeed. You know, there were incipient forms of those institutions.
- [30:42]
Martin DeCaro
Everyone on the ballot had to be a communist. But at least you had a choice.
- [30:46]
Political Analyst
Maybe the Communist Party should divide within itself and form two or maybe more different parties and they should compete and they should be able to discuss freely the problems that raised people's concerns.
- [31:00]
Martin DeCaro
I find Gorbachev such a fascinating figure. I don't like to use the word hero, but he is one of my heroes for a Couple of reasons, and he probably never intended it to end this way. But he did undermine the foundations of his own power for the good of the country. Right. He did want to have more freedom in the country. So to do that, he had to undermine the foundations of his own power, the party and his own office. And also because he, for the most part, did not resort to force to keep the Soviet empire, if you will, together. But, you know, he was not popular within the Soviet Union by the end. He was popular in foreign capitals. He was a celebrity in the United States. I remember. But I'll just share with you a paragraph from Ian Kershaw's book the Global Age, which is a study of Europe from 1950 to 2017. He's talking about the economic disintegration of the country that reached its worst point in 1991 because of the failure of Gorbachev's reforms. Kershaw writes, compared even with 1990 itself a year of misery, production fell drastically in 1991, and the budget deficit rose equally alarmingly. There were shortages of consumer goods and fuel. Food prices doubled. Unsurprisingly, popular support drained away from an increasingly hapless Gorbachev, whose plan for economic recovery proved a sorry failure. Well over half of Soviet citizens, according to an opinion survey in autumn of 1990, said their lives had become worse under Gorbachev. Only 8% thought they had improved. Were you among the 8% who thought things had gotten better, or were you among most of the people who thought things had gotten worse?
- [32:39]
Political Analyst
Well, Gorbachev was certainly a celebrity, especially in Europe and especially in Eastern Europe, because he let go of the territories that were for all practical purposes occupied by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had its troops in the territory of the so called socialist camp countries. So when he let them go, he was a hero there, and he was a hero in Western Europe, certainly not in the Soviet Union. And you mentioned a very important turning point when you said that he almost did not use force in early 91. He used force against those former republics, well, now former then still republics of the Soviet Union, namely the Baltics, which actually demonstrated very strong determination to secede. And he used force, to me and many people like myself, a moment of ultimate disillusionment. And we could not support Gorbachev anymore. And actually that was the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He did not actually go too far when he realized that the resistance to the center and to the use of force from Moscow did not make people in those Baltic republics to surrender and to accept Defeat. He actually stopped the military operation at that point. I think at that point he was already disoriented. It was not quite sure whether he was with reformers in the Soviet Union who wanted to go farther than he was prepared to do. He did not want to be together with the hardliners. So by that time he was confused and this prepared actually what happened to him later, I would say it was an infinitely interesting and exciting time. I have to admit that we in Moscow were privileged economically in many different ways, and we did not suffer the deprivations to the same extent that people did elsewhere. But my circle, my broader circle of friends and acquaintances, of course enjoyed the fact of constraints being lifted. Things were in motion, and it was no longer a sense that this is going to be forever. There was. It was anything but stagnant. That kept many people, but certainly still a minority in the Soviet Union, kept them enthusiastic and hopeful.
- [35:20]
Martin DeCaro
So how did you feel when the USSR disappeared? We're not just talking about the end of communism as a political or economic system. Your country, the only country you had known, had lived in right, is now no longer. I know how you feel about it now. How did you feel about it at the time?
- [35:37]
Political Analyst
I don't think that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was something that we anticipated. There was turmoil, there was a sense of change. There was a sense of things falling apart in many different ways, including economically. But there was no sense of the end of the Soviet Union and what it would mean. A very important event previously to the Soviet Union dissolution was the de facto secession of the Baltic states. There was a moment, probably, I would say a couple of years, a year and a half before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the idea that the Baltic states would actually secede no longer looked unrealistic. And that was in itself unimaginable a couple of years before that. So I would say maybe around 89, 1989, there was the sense that they will no longer be kept within the Soviet Union. But then the events took such a hectic turn, beginning with this aborted use of force in the Baltics, and then a coup against Gorbachev, some attempts by the hardliners to win the upper hand, and then, of course, the coup in 91. After that, it did not look like, well, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was but a step in this amazing chain of events. Did they want the Soviet Union to dissolve? Not really. This was not the terms that people used. It was about democracy. It was about freedom. It was about no longer the dictatorship of the Communist Party, we're going to have a system in which they were will be different parties. That was the conversation, not the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
- [37:33]
Martin DeCaro
Listening to your remarks, it just seems like it was a head spinning time. And how are you going to process all of this change that's happening so rapidly? Change, as you say, that was unimaginable. Just a few years before that, Yeltsin as well, he drove a nail into the coffin. Basically Russia, if you will, seceding from within the Soviet Union.
- [37:52]
Political Analyst
What was most important was that his popularity was growing. In the summer of 1990, he was elected, for all practical purposes, President of the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union, which was kind of strange because it used to be that all the power hierarchy was within the Communist Party. And now something, something entirely different was happening. So he was a powerful man and he came together with the presidents of other constituent republics. And that was not to go into detail. They agreed more or less that they would dissolve the Soviet Union. And this made Mikhail Gorbachev kind of superfluous, kind of an odd man act. When the Soviet Union was no more A. This came as a complete surprise to some people who had not experienced the turmoil, for better or worse. To some in Central Asian republics, for instance, this came as completely unexpected that they are no longer part of the Soviet Union. What does it even mean? Moscow is not our capital anymore. The ruble is no longer our currency. Where are we? So what happens to all kinds of economic relationships? It was indeed the time of turmoil.
- [39:17]
Martin DeCaro
So the Soviet Union is gone. It took me a while to finally get to the main order of business here. In our interview, Maria, there was some optimism with the liberalization of the economy and politics and Yeltsin's rule. But it must not have lasted very long, because early in the 1990s already you get hyperinflation and the wiping out of people's savings accounts. And privatization, according to Ian Kershaw, had simply placed huge state assets for a fraction of their true value into the hands of a small number of super rich oligarchs, the bosses of newly constituted big private concerns. Organized criminal gangs used extortion, blackmail and even murder to force through the process of privatization and consolidation of enormous wealth. Russia, within the space of only a few years, became a criminalized society. So, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you it was how do Westerners, Americans like myself, how do we misread what happened in 1991 because it was celebrated in the west, the end of history. This is a good thing. Communism is gone.
- [40:17]
Boris Yeltsin
This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It's a victory for the moral force of our values.
- [40:25]
Martin DeCaro
But things took an ugly turn for the worse.
- [40:27]
Political Analyst
Well, actually, the very reason that made the west celebrate was arguably a reason for Russia to despair over the Cold War. Enemy was dramatically weakened, lost its territory. Well, I mean, an important part of its territory, its military might was diminished quite substantially, its economic might as well. This gave a reason for those in the Western world and first and foremost in the United States, to rejoice. You know, we are strong and they are weak and they are weakened and weakened quite dramatically. So I think if you look at it through this lens, it's clear that there was no reason to rejoice in the Soviet Union. People in the Baltic republics could celebrate secession because they were now independent, liberated from the regime that many of them thought of as an occupation regime. The same was partly true for people in Ukraine. There was part of that in places like Georgia or maybe Moldova, but not in Russia. I mean, we did not liberate ourselves from anyone. We just grew smaller and weaker to people in Russia. I think overwhelmingly the Soviet Union was Russia in a way. And come to think of it, you know, we were left with the same capital, same Kremlin, it was the same country, just smaller and weaker. Plus what you mentioned, what I think this quote that you read. Indeed, as of the beginning of 1992, Russia introduced economic reforms that led to very heavy inflation, to the collapse of the habitual safety net. Instead of stagnation, or call it stability, things were in flux. People were impoverished, the crime rate was up. It was the time of confusion. And it was a time when people who had gotten used, well, all they knew, they had secure jobs in the Soviet Union, right? Maybe not very high salary, but secure jobs. And they didn't have to work too hard and they didn't have to make too difficult choices. Like, you know, if you were a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, an engineer, you graduated from college, you were short of a job job. The government distributed housing not very generously. Some people suffered. But in big urban centers, and especially Moscow, well, it was a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. Suddenly, the salary that you were paid only one year before could not buy you anything. You could no longer provide for your family. What happened was many people with higher education and reasonably okay Soviet jobs were forced to make very difficult choices they never actually prepared themselves for making, like finding a new job, finding a way to make some money on the side. People with engineer education and engineering jobs would become shuttle traders. That is Going to China or Poland or Turkey, and in large bags bring back consumer goods and resell them in Moscow and other big urban centers. A very, very difficult and disappointing experience.
- [43:50]
Martin DeCaro
These problems should have been foreseeable to try to turn a command economy into a market economy overnight, so to speak. I have Svetlana Alekseyevich's book here, secondhand the Last of the Soviets. It's her oral history. She does a number of interviews and she's interviewing this one fellow about Gorbachev. How do you feel about him now? And the person responds, nobody wants a strong Russia with or without the Communists. The world sees us as a storehouse that they can raid for oil, natural gas, timber and base metals. We trade our oil for underpants. But we used to be a civilization without rags and junk. The Soviet civilization. Someone felt the need to put an end to it. The CIA were already being controlled by the Americans. They must have paid Gorbachev a tidy sum. Sooner or later, the man says he will see his day in court. I just hope that Judas lives to feel the brunt of his nation's rage. I would gladly take him out to the Batovo firing range and shoot him in the back of the skull myself. Then the man slammed his fist down on the table. The Batovo firing range was where the victims of Stalin's purges between 1936 and 1953, over 20,000 political prisoners were executed there. Do you despise Gorbachev?
- [45:08]
Political Analyst
I don't. And I appreciate him for wishing well to his people. He tried, he tried. He was not very successful. I certainly do not despise him. But I have to admit that the perception that is described in the quote that you just read is common. Well, maybe not so much these days because people stop thinking about Gorbachev, especially after his death. I have to think about myself as privileged people in the capital cities, Moscow, St. Petersburg. But Moscow, especially during those early years when so many people suffered in the Soviet Union, enjoyed wonderful opportunities, new jobs, new opportunities. Opportunity to travel, which was amazing for somebody who thought that travel abroad was something inexistent. People in my circle, I would hardly be able to name anyone who did not have a new amazing career. As I mentioned earlier, one of the constraints of the Soviet system was that throwing profit was a crime. Business was inexistent. And this is a career, an opportunity that many people craved. Right? This is a human pursuit, just one of the most important human pursuits. Suits. Suddenly, that was an opportunity, of course, for a minority enjoying the opportunities of the 90s. I was not thinking the way I'm thinking now about the majority in my country who actually had it so hard in those years. It was only in retrospect that I realized that it was just so very selfish to be enjoying my opportunities and not thinking about my, my compatriots. But the post Soviet Russia of the 90s was in a sense with reservations in a fledgling democracy. In that we had a multi party election in 1993 and then another in 1995. But both years using these terms with reservations. The ruling party, the incumbent party law. In both those elections, people voted by a vast majority for opposition parties. It was Vladimir zerinovsky's party in 93, the nationalist buffoon with crazy rhetoric. But people chose to vote for his party rather than for the pro Kremlin force. And in 1995, people voted for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
- [47:45]
Martin DeCaro
Amazing.
- [47:46]
Political Analyst
A majority in the Russian legislature. There were those who benefited, but they were certainly a minority.
- [47:52]
Martin DeCaro
It must break your heart to see Russia today looking a lot like the USSR of the pre Gorbachev era, the Brezhnev era. War against the periphery, government, repression of dissent. There is no free media basically anymore corruption. I don't know if you agree with that comparison, but certainly, you know, the hope of the 1990s has been vanquished under Putin.
- [48:16]
Political Analyst
Well, I would say there are more differences than similarities. You can find similarities if you're looking for them. And of course it is an authoritarian country, no question about that. However, there I would say more especially if you are looking from a perspective of a person who lives in Russia, you know, this is not an economy of shortages. That's very, very important. Russia's remains, let's put it this way, of a market. It is a heavily centralized, state controlled economy as far as big industries are concerned. And of course natural resources more and more so. However, there is still an opportunity to do business. And as long as this is a market economy, this is not a country that suffers shortages. So for a rank and file Russian, this is a huge difference. Russia still has opened open borders. The Soviet Union I lived in, you could not leave the country, you had to ask for a permission and you would not be granted one until you were part of some privileged group, the Internet, of course, not an achievement of today's Russia. But this has changed the world so much, including my country. And this keeps the country much more open, I mean tremendously more open than the Soviet Union was. So one can still do business in Russia if we're looking from a human perspective. And whereas The Soviet Union of the stagnation period had this sense of nothing is changing and nothing is going to change ever. This is certainly not the case in today's Russia. The Soviet Union, for all its autocracy and for all the evil empire, if this is how you want to describe it, it actually was a country that rooted for peace. Not anymore. This is not what Putin's Russia is like today. The Soviet Union was guided by Marxist Leninist ideology, which was a doctrine, a single truth theory, as it was referred to, which had to explain everything going on in the world, in science, in people's lives, et cetera. Well, today's Russia increasingly is drawing on ideological tools, but it doesn't have a doctrine. This is just to give you an idea. I can go.
- [50:45]
Martin DeCaro
No, I agree, I agree there is no major ideology under Putinism, but go ahead.
- [50:49]
Political Analyst
Yeah, in the Soviet Union, we had a doctrine, it had a name, it pretended, it claimed the ability to explain the world, not just to discipline its people. And there was the ultimate ideological authority which actually had the answers to all of those questions, what is right and what is wrong. This is not the case anymore, even though today's regime is drawing heavily on ideological instrument in pursuing its policy. So it's a different system, but of course, there are similarities as far as the political system is concerned.
- [51:24]
Martin DeCaro
And Putin also draws on Soviet history, the victory in World War II, to try to buttress support for what he's doing in Ukraine today. But your remarks there are really fascinating because it made me think of the quote, I read the old man who was angry about what has happened to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, how angry he was at Gorbachev. He talked. And a lot of the people interviewed by Alexeyevich talked about how, you know, we at least had that idea, that mission, that civilization, Homo Sovieticus, the new man. Yet at the same time, as you say, during the stagnation years, ordinary Soviet citizens didn't believe that they were moving toward the socialist utopia anymore. Who still believed in that anymore, other than maybe not even the party apparatchiks? So there is that contradiction there about how people remember something and how they felt about it while they were living through it.
- [52:15]
Political Analyst
Yeah, this certainly is true. And I can only repeat what you just said. The Soviet Union of its contemporaries looked very different than it does even to the same people who lived back then. And by the way, it was many years ago, several decades ago now, the way people remember their own days, their own younger days, when they were much younger in the Soviet Union. And the way they are looking at it it today, it is impossible actually to fully combine the two. Not to mention that people talking about life in the Soviet Union today quite often don't have any experience with it. But even those who do have recollections that I think they would probably have been surprised by if they had been shown those recollections when they were still in the Soviet Union.
- [53:07]
Boris Yeltsin
Mikhail Gorbachev's revolutionary policies transformed the Soviet Union. His policies permitted the peoples of Russia and the other republics to cast aside decades of oppression and establish the foundations of freedom.
- [53:26]
Martin DeCaro
On the next episode of History As It Happens year in review, 2024. And what a hell of of a year it's been. Remember new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter sign up free at history as it happens.com comes out every Friday.